


Jaya Fights With Her Brain - Author Commentary

by yuutsuhime



Category: Original Work
Genre: Author Commentary, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25062700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuutsuhime/pseuds/yuutsuhime
Summary: A formal statement of poetics submitted alongsideJaya Fights With Her Brainfor a university class.
Kudos: 1





	Jaya Fights With Her Brain - Author Commentary

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write this formally but I was trying to get a good grade on my final portfolio (I got 100%).
> 
> Note that I'm trying to conceal that I am a trans woman from my professor.

My main aspiration for poetry is to tell stories that I think are important. Specifically, poetry exists in an unusual realm separate from nonfiction and fiction, which allows narratives to be framed in different contexts of truth and personality. For example, fictional stories might arise from the author's own life, but there is always an element of fantasy and imagination at play from the perspective of the reader; the author's interests and experiences may be visible through the story, but ultimately readers will evaluate the work as something essentially unrelated to the author's life. Similarly, nonfiction is expected to be explicitly about truth, and so a narrator who appears in nonfiction is expected to be a real person; if the narrator is a first-person "I" then a reader would interpret this to be the author. Poetry can provide an interesting middle-ground due to the increased sensitivity to change, brevity, and context.

First of all, poetry can operate as a collection in ways that would seem awkward or unclear in other forms. A collection of small poems, such as my portfolio, comes with no assumptions of narrative continuity between poems. The connections might be as fragile as theme or tone, and the organization of poems in a collection might have meaning—perhaps there exists an overarching emotional journey—but a series of poems does not come with the implicit expectation of compactness that a single larger story does. This allows for a lot of freedom. In previous works of fiction and nonfiction I've made use of discontinuous storytelling as a way to focus on important scenes without the unimportant connections getting in the way. Transitions between these scenes can often seem jarring, in the same was as a jump-cut in a movie, and I like using this as an artistic technique to enunciate the beginning and ending of each scene. However, a work of fiction might be expected to maintain the same voice, genre, and style between its parts or risk being seen as excessively postmodern—or excessively poetic. The strength of a collection of poetry comes from the lack of this kind of assumption between poems—it becomes a challenge to the reader to identify the connection and dwell on the purpose behind the organization; the connection itself is a mysterious artistic element that is inherent in the poetic form rather than something manufactured through unusual narrative style.

Regarding my collection, I wanted to tell a story that is fundamentally disjoint and fragmented. The narrator, Jaya, is struggling with depression and growing up; her role in the world is unclear, and in many ways her story is actually my own, just disguised through a persona. Personae are also interesting tools in poetry because a persona in fiction is simply a fictional character, and a persona in nonfiction is either a real person or not, which would respectively be obviously real, or a challenge to the reality of the form. These forms can obviously be expanded and the role of characters in each isn't this well-defined, but personae in poetry offer a distinct advantage because persona poetry is, in a way, ordinary. Analysis of poetry is usually framed around a speaker or narrator, who may or may not actually be the author. I wanted to take advantage of this opacity by creating a persona, Jaya, who is simultaneously me and not me; this allowed me to share information in ways that were comfortable for me, yet were not bound to being fictional. Sharing my experience with depression and identity is difficult, mainly because it's difficult to realize how these problems are actively affecting me. By dumping these into a persona, I can construct a definite character and hence remove a lot of questions about myself while simultaneously writing personal truths into the poetry.

In this sense the fragmentation of the narrative is justified, because the story I'm trying to tell about depression and growing up is not one that can be easily organized or assigned a genre. There are going to be scenes that are sad, but also scenes that are happy, joyous, friendly, loving, surreal, confusing, or nostalgic. By using the form of a poetry collection, I can isolate each emotion into its own poem, and consequently explore how these clashing emotions interact. Within each poem there are expected to be elements of a jarring nature—for example enjambments contrasting with nicely flowing lines, or rhyme contrasting with un-rhymed sounds. I wanted to take this a step further, because the actual experience of having mental illness is variously jarring, confusing, and wholly disorganized. This is represented in the portfolio by the snapshot nature of poems: there is a set of recurring characters throughout each poem that establish literal continuity, but the emotional experiences vary wildly. By splitting some poems into numbered sections, and at a larger scope by the actual organization of poetry in the collection, I'm able to contrast tones and emotions directly. This is a very powerful tool for me, since I can force a reader to consider why numbered sections are related, or consider why two poems are located near each other. This gives me a more holistic view of the characters' experience without relegating me to one genre or one narrative; hence, the poetic form itself is aiding in my ability to tell a story.

In the context of the world, telling important and personal stories is incredibly important. On a basic level, hearing stories gives a voice to the poet, and gives a platform to the subject matter being discussed. Topics such as mental illness and depression frequently become invisible, or are only considered to be special interest. I think that everybody can benefit from having this discussion, but furthermore people who are questioning their experiences can be given strength and solace through hearing other people's stories. This was the case for me when I started visiting slam poetry competitions, in that I gained strength to address a lot of my issues through other poets' work. Furthermore, poetry can be used to fight against active oppression. So much power is exerted over minorities by silencing or misrepresenting people. Poetry, and art in general, provides a space where silence can be broken and struggles can be made unambiguous. This has been the theme of many of [Guante's](https://guante.info/) works, and especially was the case in a slam after the 2016 election where he inspired me with his discussion of how art is power. Overall I want to use poetry to tell my own story, perhaps for the sake of other people, but mainly for the sake of having power for myself: the ability to express depression and identity problems that I've been keeping quiet about for a long time. Through the techniques of fragmentation and personae (that are more effective, it seems, in a poetic form), I'm able to speak about my own experiences in a way that I find comfortable and strong.


End file.
